Amy Anderson and TJ Fisher, members of the NAU student Green Fund, stand a their booth and encourage students to vote on which model recycling bins NAU will be getting. (Photo by: Daniel Daw)
In an effort to further improve NAU’s environmental programs, this year a new program, Climate Science and Solutions, was added through grant funding. The new program, which is only available to graduate students, was approved in June 2010 by by the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR). There are currently eight students in the master’s program this year, and more students are choosing to get involved in environmental sciences every year.
George Koch, Matthew Hurteau, Bruce Hungate, Darrell Kaufman and Tom Acker wrote the grant proposal to National Science Foundation and were granted the award for the Science Masters Program. NAU was a recipient of one of the 22 awards granted to universities throughout the country. The grant will go toward helping get the master’s program started at NAU.
Matthew Hurteau, visiting assistant professor for the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, said the group who wrote the proposal for the grant saw the program as an opportunity to train students in a major that is becoming more important every day.
“I was one of the investigators on the proposal,” Hurteau said. “As a group, we developed the idea for the program based on a recognized need in the industry for people trained in climate change and mitigation and adaptation.”
Sally Evans, operations and contract manager for the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, said the program began because of the grant
“The degree program began with a grant from the National Science Foundation submitted through the Merriam Powell Center for Environmental Research here on campus,” Evans said. “I serve as the program coordinator for that grant, and I help the students with registration issues, tuition payments and general problem solving. It’s a lot of fun.”
Hurteau said the new program has also been awarded funding from NAU President Haeger’s Innovation Fund.
“A National Science Foundation grant is providing student and program support for the first three years,” Hurteau said. “George Koch is the PI [principal investigator] on the grant. The co-PIs are myself, Bruce Hungate, Darrell Kaufman and Tom Acker. We were also awarded funding from President Haeger’s Innovation Fund to support the launch of the program.”
Evans said the new program will bring many opportunities to students to get involved in the growing field of climate change science, and NAU is one of the few schools in the country that focuses specifically on climate change studies.
“This is a great opportunity for NAU to attract top students interested in the rapidly developing field of climate change science,” Evans said. “There are only 235 professional science master’s programs in the United States, and only five of them are dedicated to the study of climate change. Our students will leave NAU with a suite of skills designed to both help them understand the causes and processes of climatic change, and the ability to develop plans to mitigate the impacts of such change.”
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